Spend time underwater? You’ll want the Xperia ZR to record your adventures

Sony knows we’re a clumsy lot, and therefore has gone to great lengths to waterproof its most recent, range-topping hardware such as the Xperia Z and Xperia Tablet Z. Now, it has added another phone which is happy to deal with a few drops of water, but instead of promoting it to the accident prone, it’s pushing it towards those who voluntarily take their phones underwater.

Yes, the Xperia ZR has a 13-megapixel camera which can shoot 1080p video underwater, an unusual feature which we’re still working out whether anyone would really want to use. The camera also boasts an HDR mode, and uses the excellent Exmor RS sensor, which produces great snaps on the Xperia Z. Even if you don’t do much swimming, the waterproofing on the Xperia ZR will still come in handy, as it’s one step above that seen on the Xperia Z, so it can stay down for 30 minutes up to a depth of 1.5 meters.

The phone’s screen measures 4.55-inches and has a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution, while a 1.5GHz, quad-core Snapdragon processor with 2GB of RAM runs the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system. Other features include dust proofing and shatter proof glass covering the screen, 8GB of memory, a microSD card slot, DLNA connectivity and NFC.

There’s a question mark over where Sony will launch the Xperia ZR, with reports it won’t be coming to the UK, despite it showing up as, “Coming Soon” on Sony’s UK website. Sadly, this can’t be taken as confirmation, so we’ll just have to wait and see if it’s picked up by any networks. Sony expects the phone to go on sale before the end of June.

About Andrew Boxall

Andy's fascination with mobile tech began in the 90s, at a time when SMS messages were considered cutting edge, but it would be at least a decade before he would put finger-to-keyboard as a freelance tech writer. In the interim he wrote about travel, formulated strong opinions about films and drove a series of audacious cars